Social Media

Get Thee Onto Tumblr Before it's Too Late

Dan Tynan has been writing about technology since Steve Ballmer had hair. He is a contributing editor for Family Circle, where he writes about the intersection of parenting and technology. He also blogs about social media and privacy for IDG publications and is the co-founder of a disreputable humor blog. Tynan is the father of two smart-yet-sassy teenagers, but nothing he says should ever be construed as professional parenting advice. Follow him on Twitter @tynanwrites or at his blog Hopeless Dork.

So we were hanging out in our kitchen having a geeky conversation, which happens pretty much every night at my house, when I asked my 16-year-old son if he had a Tumblr account. He wasn’t facing me, but I could tell he was rolling his eyes.

“No,” he said pointedly. “I do not.”

I pressed the matter. “Why not?”

“Because I am not a hysterical 13-year-old girl.”

It was at this point that my daughter, age 13, became hysterical. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember how loudly she said it. This kind of bickering also happens pretty much every night in our house. You see, my daughter loves Tumblr. Facebook? That’s so five minutes ago. Tumblr is "da bomb" for her and her friends. (I can hear her now: “God, dad, nobody says ‘da bomb’ any more.” Yeah, yeah.)

But Tumblr is not Facebook –- not even close. It’s more like MySpace circa 2003. There are virtually no rules and, for many teens, no adult supervision. Unlike Facebook, Tumblr allows explicit content. As a result, it’s become a pornucopia of sexual imagery. How much? Nobody quite knows. But a Google search for “NSFW” (not safe for work) on Tumblr produces more than 6 million hits. You can tell Tumblr to not display images tagged NSFW, but first the images have to be tagged NSFW (not all of them are), and it’s extremely easy to turn that setting off.

Now that Tumblr has started to accept mainstream advertising, that may change. There are some reports of Tumblr purging adult blogs from its network. But Internet porn is like herpes; once you’ve got it, it’s usually with you forever.

If you’ve never been on Tumblr, you’ll be amazed at how simple it is to use. Creating an account is slightly more complicated than rolling out of bed. You submit your email, password and choose a user name. You can optionally pick topics or other accounts you want to follow, or import Tumblrs from your Facebook or Gmail friends. You can also invest some time in designing your page (and there are some really impressive Tumblrs out there), but just to get up and running takes about 3 minutes, most of which you’ll spend trying to pick a user name that isn’t already taken.

Tumblr is largely about sharing images and animated GIFs, most of them either funny or pornographic. See something you like on someone else’s Tumblr? Click the reblog link. That automatically posts the image to your own Tumblr, as well as a link to your blog beneath the original item.

It is amazingly easy and infectious, and I can see why my daughter got hooked on it. So why am I worried? Here are my four biggest concerns:

She could post inappropriate photos to Tumblr. I know my daughter, though, and I really don’tbelieve she’d do this

Her friends may post inappropriate photos and share them with her. Them, I’m not quite as sureabout

Her blog will be followed by creepy older guys, who will then come on to her in the comments. Thatdefinitely worries me

She’ll be exposed to raunchy porn. Again, I’m not that worried –- I think she’d find it totallydisgusting. (Your child’s tolerance for raunchy porn may vary.) And with any luck it would put her offsex for 10 or 15 years

What can you do about it? You could try blocking Tumblr, with software like Norton Online Family or Net Nanny, or via your WiFi router settings. As I’ve said before about Facebook, however, if your kids want to get on Tumblr, they’re going to get on Tumblr –- if not at home then elsewhere. You could also try convincing them to dump Tumblr in favor of Pinterest. Let me know how that works out for you.

So the better solution is to have The Talk about what is and isn’t appropriate online behavior, and what the risks are. Get them to be honest about what they’re looking at and how many Tumblrs they have (you can have several different ones linked to a single email address). Don’t be judgmental; be curious and interested.

Then sign up for your own account and follow your their blogs. Just don’t get too obnoxious aboutgetting up in their business, or they might quietly block you and/or start up a new Tumblr withouttelling you.

Then, of course, pray they’ll grow out of it. That has to happen eventually, right?

This post is part of a series on the digital dilemmas of raising digital kids. We'd like to hear some of the parenting issues technology has raised for you. Please let us know in the comments, or on our Mashable Lifestyle Facebook page. You can also follow and tweet us @mashlifestyle.

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